The honey it replaces revs up their immune and detoxification systems.

Apis mellifera, the western honeybee, is big business; the pollination services the bees provide to US agriculture are valued at roughly $14 billion. Unfortunately, bees the world over are suffering from colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which worker bees go out foraging and then disappear instead of returning to the hive and tending to the queen like they are supposed to. The causes of CCD are not clear, but pathogens, parasites, and pesticides have all been implicated. Neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides that have been shown to alter bees’ navigation, foraging, communication, and reproduction, have just been banned in Europe in an attempt to help the bees.

New research suggests yet another potential contributor to CCD. The problem? We’ve been stealing the bees’ honey and instead feeding them high fructose corn syrup. The problem isn't so much the fructose as the absence of chemicals in the honey.

Bees are exposed to a huge variety of plants because they gather nectar from the spring through the fall. The honey they make from these diverse nectar sources varies according to locality (leading to the unsubstantiated belief that eating local honey can alleviate seasonal hay fever). And bees’ “immune systems”—detoxification enzymes used to rid the body of foreign chemicals, like pesticides—are known to be induced by different stimuli than those of other insects. So scientists decided to check whether any components of honey can induce bees’ detoxification enzymes.

They started by separating honey into four different fractions and feeding each individually to different sets of bees to determine whether any induced a known detoxifying gene. The most active fraction contained p-coumaric acid, a structural component in the outer wall of pollen grains. Then they looked to see what other genes p-coumaric acid might induce and found twelve more detoxifying genes as well as two antimicrobials.

Commercial beekeepers feed bees high fructose corn syrup instead of honey for the same reason that commercial food manufacturers feed it to us: it’s cheaper. But it's only one of the problems the bees face. In the 1980s the varroa mite, Varroa destructor, started attacking bees in the US, so pesticides were introduced into beehives to kill the mites. This research suggests that swapping out honey robbed the bees of things they need to rev up their detoxification systems just when they needed it most—as they were exposed to an increased load of both pathogens and pesticides.

149 Reader Comments

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

Could they not just identify the chemicals and put them in the corn syrup?

Why not just leave some of the honey for the bees?

Honey is expensive, HFCS is cheap. If letting them keep more of the honey is cheaper than feeding them HFCS + requisite immunoboosters or replacing hives as they collapse that's what they'll do; otherwise they'll do one of the other options.

I started buying locally-produced honey and stopped buying grocery store honey because it is mostly illegally imported from China.

I didn't even even know about the practice of taking all of the honey and replacing it with corn syrup. But this is another good reason to support your local beekeepers. You will have to go a a farmer's market or straight to the beekeeper and, yes you will pay twice as much as you would at the Chain Food's MegaUltrastore, but you'll get better quality, less impact on the environment, support local farming, etc. etc. It's worth it.

Could they not just identify the chemicals and put them in the corn syrup?

Or they could go back to doing things the way they were before the bees started dying off.

Same goes for the relatively new class of pesticides that was also believed to kill off bees. If these things are believed to be killing off bees, then we should take a step back. But instead these smarty-folk want to add more on top of the pile, cause more = more money. They get paid to sell farmers possible solutions to the things they made the messed everything up in the first place. But 10 years down the road we'll be seeing a bad side-effect to that solution.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

This is not a problem with HCFS but instead a misuse of it. It could of been replaced with molasses or Maple syrup and the same problem would of occurred. I somehow doubt you would call for those to be banned.However I agree that industries as a whole try to work with cheapest products possible and this leads to calorie rich nutrient deprived food on many shelves. HCFS is one of the offending over used ingredients.

EDIT:Someone more knowledgable than me pointed out that Molasses and Maple syrup would be poisonous to bees. But i think my point still stands.

Gotta be Billion. 14 million isn't big business, it's a small family business.

Indeed. The economic value of beekeeping has been estimated to be worth 14.6 billion USD in the US alone. That was a 2000 estimate. If we extrapolate from the 1989 estimate it should be around 22 billion today.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

I find it troubling that you would make such a broad statement without evidence or scientific understanding. HFCS is simply another sugar with a higher fructose ratio to glucose, which makes it sweeter. Table sugar, sucrose, is also fructose + glucose. When sucrose, HFCS, or any other type of disaccharide is eaten, it is broken down to it's constituent monosaccharide. Only four simple sugars can pass from the gut to the bloodstream: galactose, glucose, fructose, and ribose. That's it. And the fructose in HFCS is chemical exactly the same as all other fructoses. Do you know what else is high fructose and is "natural." Honey. Pears. Grapes. I could go on, but I'd just bore you.

So, let's be clear. HFCS is broken down into fructose and glucose. That's it. Sucrose, the same thing. All sugars that taste sweet are broken down and absorbed as simple sugars, and they're all the same. It is completely safe.

And please don't throw the "Corn Syrup Manufacturers" Shill Gambit on me. I am a real skeptic, who uses real scientific evidence, to determine if something is bogus or supportable by science. And the safety of HFCS is strongly supported by real evidence, but more than that it's simply a sugar which is broken down into fructose and glucose like all other sugars.

I started buying locally-produced honey and stopped buying grocery store honey because it is mostly illegally imported from China.

I didn't even even know about the practice of taking all of the honey and replacing it with corn syrup. But this is another good reason to support your local beekeepers. You will have to go a a farmer's market or straight to the beekeeper and, yes you will pay twice as much as you would at the Chain Food's MegaUltrastore, but you'll get better quality, less impact on the environment, support local farming, etc. etc. It's worth it.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

This is not a problem with HCFS but instead a misuse of it. It could of been replaced with molasses or Maple syrup and the same problem would of occurred. I somehow doubt you would call for those to be banned.However I agree that industries as a whole try to work with cheapest products possible and this leads to calorie rich nutrient deprived food on many shelves. HCFS is one of the offending over used ingredients.

A small point here. When I researched HCFS as a skeptic, I found out why they use it. Because fructose tastes sweeter, HCFS is, as you said, a cheaper product because you can use less of it than other types of sugar. Coincidentally, you are consuming fewer calories of sugar for equivalent sweetness, so that may be a good thing.

But consuming excess sugars is just not good. But it amuses me that people replace HFCS with regular sugar, which because it's less sweet, requires more sugar, or so called "natural" sugars that have the same exact metabolic effect.

First, the title of this article is misleading (the Ars article, that is). The PNAS paper focuses specifically on the link between the benefits of several enzymes found in honey and their relationship to the health of the bees. The abstract is pretty clear in saying that the immune response was not tested with a diet of HFCS.

Secondly, where in the journal article are they testing the relationship between CCD and HFCS? Neither of these things are tested at all! The only real thing being investigated is that a diet containing p-coumaric acid can boost several components (out of an unknown number) of the bees immune system. It is a jump to assume that HFCS will weaken the overall detoxification process by lacking this enzyme. Even more of a jump to assume that a weakened immune system is a major factor in CCD.

I know these seem like minor points, but they most are most certainly not. I think the only real thing you can take from this paper is that p-coumaric up-regulates some genetic factors behind the immune response and detoxification in honey bees. Any more is a major stretch. And just to clarify, I'm not defending HFCS, only the scientific process. This paper is a good starting point for future research but this article does a poor job at identifying several assumptions between the data in the paper and the untested hypothesis that is conjured up to title this Ars piece.

I started buying locally-produced honey and stopped buying grocery store honey because it is mostly illegally imported from China.

I didn't even even know about the practice of taking all of the honey and replacing it with corn syrup. But this is another good reason to support your local beekeepers. You will have to go a a farmer's market or straight to the beekeeper and, yes you will pay twice as much as you would at the Chain Food's MegaUltrastore, but you'll get better quality, less impact on the environment, support local farming, etc. etc. It's worth it.

Because your local beekeepers aren't interested in profit?

It's true that I don't know if they choose to switch out honey for HFCS. As I said, that wasn't my reason for switching to locally produced honey. On the other hand, when the operation is small enough that their main distribution channel is the local farmer's market, people usually see their work as much as a labor of love as a hard-core business venture and are less likely to seek additional short-term profit over good agricultural practice.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

It could of been replaced with molasses or Maple syrup and the same problem would of occurred.

The research clearly indicates the problem is NOT with the HFCS. It's the removal of the honey. As someone else said, any other 'natural' sugar source would have the same result.

The REAL problem is people who can't get it through their head how to live healthy. The only reason the honey is removed is the satisfy the human sweet tooth. People say HFCS is bad but then eat honey. That's lose-lose. Let the bees keep the honey so they can live to pollinate healthy foods. If people insist on killing themselves with sugars, let them eat cane sugar, or corn sugar, or whatever. HFCS isn't in food because it's cheap, it's because people repeatedly buy sugary foods.

"Commercial beekeepers feed bees high fructose corn syrup instead of honey for the same reason that commercial food manufacturers feed it to us: it’s cheaper." That's just a ridiculously narrow and misleading comment.

All you people complaining about HFCS need to spend less time spouting off and more time getting a clue.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

I'm all for hating on HFCS and all, but you seem to be missing a huge part of the article. The report doesn't say that the HFCS is BAD, but that its MISSING certain proteins since it's not produced from the local plant life.

When theres a study that tests HFCS containing the missing proteins, THEN we can determine whether or not HFCS is truly detrimental.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

I find it troubling that you would make such a broad statement without evidence or scientific understanding. HFCS is simply another sugar with a higher fructose ratio to glucose, which makes it sweeter. Table sugar, sucrose, is also fructose + glucose. When sucrose, HFCS, or any other type of disaccharide is eaten, it is broken down to it's constituent monosaccharide. Only four simple sugars can pass from the gut to the bloodstream: galactose, glucose, fructose, and ribose. That's it. And the fructose in HFCS is chemical exactly the same as all other fructoses. Do you know what else is high fructose and is "natural." Honey. Pears. Grapes. I could go on, but I'd just bore you.

So, let's be clear. HFCS is broken down into fructose and glucose. That's it. Sucrose, the same thing. All sugars that taste sweet are broken down and absorbed as simple sugars, and they're all the same. It is completely safe.

And please don't throw the "Corn Syrup Manufacturers" Shill Gambit on me. I am a real skeptic, who uses real scientific evidence, to determine if something is bogus or supportable by science. And the safety of HFCS is strongly supported by real evidence, but more than that it's simply a sugar which is broken down into fructose and glucose like all other sugars.

I generalized the damage it does because I thought most people would know what I meant. Since you do not, and I'm not an expert on it, I'll instead direct you to read up on it by people who know better.

While sugar itself is not good, the sheer amount of HFCS is even more dangerous to health. Not in the it'll poison you exaggerations but in the way it has helped spike obesity and other related health issues.

Don't throw me in with the health nuts either. I'm not paranoid or extrapolating non-existent science here and trying to discredit my comment by association is weak in itself.

Oh, come on. This is, what, the sixth? seventh? thing that "causes" colony collapse disorder. Viruses, climate change, cellphones, etc. And they don't even show that there is any relationship between HFCS and CCD.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

I'm all for hating on HFCS and all, but you seem to be missing a huge part of the article. The report doesn't say that the HFCS is BAD, but that its MISSING certain proteins since it's not produced from the local plant life.

When theres a study that tests HFCS containing the missing proteins, THEN we can determine whether or not HFCS is truly detrimental.

I guess I should have expanded on that too, then. They took honey, which bees need, and replaced it with a poor subsitute lacking in what the bees need, which is now killing the bees. I don't normally feel I need to repeat the article I'm responding to but I guess I should have.

My main point was HFCS is more and more showing to be a poor replacement for yet another supplement. It's not the same thing as what it's replacing in short.

Another reason HFCS should be discontinued as a food supplement for consumption. I'm skeptical of many of the latest "food fads" (every week some new food is found to be "super good" or "super bad" for us) but that stuff truly is bad. The problem is it's everywhere. Now it's linked to killing off the bees?

I'm sure the mighty corn empire will have a disagreement with that. I like corn, on the cob and as flakes but not as a super sugary supplement that's slowly killing everything that consumes it.

I'm all for hating on HFCS and all, but you seem to be missing a huge part of the article. The report doesn't say that the HFCS is BAD, but that its MISSING certain proteins since it's not produced from the local plant life.

When theres a study that tests HFCS containing the missing proteins, THEN we can determine whether or not HFCS is truly detrimental.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I'm pretty sure that the point of feeding the bees corn-syrup, is so that that one can take more than just the "surplus" honey -- which is how bee-keepers (and bees) have managed for presumably centuries, perhaps millennia. In other words they have decided that it's not enough to take 3/4 or /10 (or whatever the fraction might be) of the honey, but rather that they'll take it ALL, and foist off some cheap substitute on the bees.

Anyone who claims HFCS is the same as sugar should explain to me why stuff with HFCS makes me very thirsty and very, very gassy (sorry, TMI, I know) while stuff with regular sugar (white refined, organic, honey, fruit, sugar beets, etc.) does not. For instance, I can drink Coke made with regular sugar just fine, but a Coke made with HFCS will make my body quite unhappy.

Anyone who claims HFCS is the same as sugar should explain to me why stuff with HFCS makes me very thirsty and very, very gassy (sorry, TMI, I know) while stuff with regular sugar (white refined, organic, honey, fruit, sugar beets, etc.) does not. For instance, I can drink Coke made with regular sugar just fine, but a Coke made with HFCS will make my body quite unhappy.

Likely it's because there's starch remaining in HFCS. Do you get gassy when you eat starchy foods?